This week, Pieces has been repeatedly dumbfounded. First came the revelation that the police can see into the future. Then Clement ‘best voice on the radio’ Freud dies. And now we wake up this morning to find that J.G. Ballard has joined him. Pretty soon it’ll be impossible to demonstrate on behalf of anything and there’ll be nothing good to demonstrate for. Great.
Anyway, something that’s particularly troubled me in this troubling week is the increasingly liberal use of really good music in advertising. Reading that back, I realise it may seem kind of counter-intuitive – surely we should be encouraging advertisers to pacify us with beautiful music rather than bludgeon us with mallets of cheese. Entire generations will never recover from the nastiness of experiencing bespoke ersatz-music nuggets like “Doublemint, refreshes your breath – Naturally!”, or “Hands that do dishes…”.
While these are decent demonstrations of the power of commercials to harm us with piercingly bad ‘music’, at least none of them actually have an effect on the way we listen to music that we would actually engage with anywhere other than a TV set. This is what’s hit me in the past week – loads of my favourite songs of the last few years have been taken behind my back and used to soundtrack products and shows that I now can’t shake off them. Granted, it means every time the irritating Lastminute advert comes on, I get to hear a blast of Can’t Stop Moving by Sonny J. But if I ever want to listen to the actual song I have to shake the image of annoying ‘ordinary’ people sticking their thumbs up at a camera (wonder what the bribe was…?) out of my brain, which is surprisingly hard. Whenever I hear Kim and Jessie by M83, I’ll be forced to picture the bunch of rotten frat girls that populate Beverly Hills 90210. And that’s just not fair; it’s a lovely song full of delicious sounds (see below). Millie’s My Boy Lollipop? Well, that tune couldn’t really get any cheesier, but it’s still a bit sad being forced to imagine techie teenagers lusting over their new phones.
“But that’s so snobbish – doesn’t it at least mean more people get to hear this good music?” Yep, it does, but isn’t it a bit crap that it’ll always have that association? Maybe I should just work harder to get rid of the images these adverts conjure.
Advertisers, please, just glue some bland music onto your commercials. At least then we can all pretend to ignore them. Or maybe I should just grow up…
On a much more fun note, this week also sees the start of Piecesounds, a weekly hour of the best music we’ve heard lately. No template, no rules, just a good ol’ dose of great music that we’ve been slowly rocking backward and forward to.
If you’re signed up to Spotify, you can click the link below to listen to all of the songs instantly J. If you’re not, you really should because it’s the best thing in the world. Nearly all the music in the universe for free. What could be better?
Anyway, here’s this week’s hour of power.
1. Four Tet/Princess Watermelon – Go Go Ninja Dinosaur
2. Herbie Hancock/Foday Musa Suso – Moon/Light
3. Erykah Badu – The Cell
4. Parliament – Rumpofsteelskin
5. Bob Dylan – I Want You
6. M83 – Kim & Jessie
7. Jackson 5 – I Found That Girl
8. School Of Seven Bells – Face To Face On High Places
9. Gil Scott Heron – When You Are Who You Are
10. Charles Mingus – Better Git It In Your Soul
11. Lyn Collins/James Brown – What My Baby Needs Now Is A Little More Lovin’
12. George Gerschwin – Sweet and Lowdown (Gerschwin Piano Roll)
13. Stan Freberg – Declaration of Independence (“A Man Can’t Be Too Careful What He Signs These Days”)
http://open.spotify.com/user/blownawish/playlist/2XJZmqkxuNMYXAl1N7LBWX
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